Month: October 2007

The API user access key is a unique alphanumeric value (string) that, together with the user name and password, is used to validate any calls to the API. This unique key is issued to individual users at signup and provides more security (authentication) than only a username and password.

How do I receive a user access key?

Contact your local sales representative. Your sales representative will assign a search marketing specialist to you who will give you a user access key.

Can I have more than one user access key?

Contact your sales representative to have more than one user access key.

What do I do if I lose my user access key?

Contact your sales representative to resend you the information.

oh well thank you, i guess this is how you keep your useless sales reps busy, Microsoft.

I don’t really remember the reason I registered with them, but the thing is I haven’t been using it lately at all. But the other day my mom, who sighed up as Microsoft’s Trade Partner in Kazakhstan asked me to subscribe her company for Action Pack. And sure enough, they didn’t make it easy on you. You just CAN’T access their subscription page unless 1) you have a LiveID 2) LiveID has to have a .hotmail email account associated with it! After two weeks of back and forth email communication with their reps in Kazakstan, Russia and the States, I finally was able to access their well hidden Action Pack subscription page. And of course to get them to talk to me and to sign in, i HAD to use their so-called LiveID and receive their emails in my hotmail account.

Now I just want to never see that hotmail page again, so i went to the options and tried to forward all the mail to Gmail (which does an amazing job at filtering all the junk while hotmail’s inbox was piled up to the top). But no way Microsoft will let you leave! Not only they tell you to “at least once every 120 days so that your account doesn’t get deleted” but look at this:

You’re only able to forward mail to a custom domain or an e-mail address that ends in hotmail.com, msn.com, or live.com. Please try again.